Hartlepool Council Mayor Stuart Drummond is to tell the Government the authority believes "ghost ship" recycler Able UK could be a shipbreaking leader.

A top-level Parliamentary committee is probing the issues around shipbreaking as highlighted by the ghost ships crisis last year.

The investigation was ordered after the ghost ships row brought to the fore the fact that every year hundreds of ships were run up Third World beaches and dismantled in dangerous conditions.

To get the view on the ground the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee asked Hartlepool Council - caught up in the ghost ships row as recycler Able UK has its ship dismantling yard at Graythorp - for its views on the issue.

A report was drawn up by officers in which it was reported that Able UK had the potential to be a "major facility on the national scale for the dismantling of defunct ships".

The report also noted the public outcry at the dumping of hazardous waste, due to be stripped from the ships, in Hartlepool and recommended that when removed it was returned to America.

The cabinet approved the report and it will now go into the council's scrutiny process before being submitted to the Government on May 15.